


weight in gold

by odayaka



Category: Gugudan (Band), VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, a light-hearted najeong, jaehwan is the walking gay best friend trope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 05:26:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10678611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odayaka/pseuds/odayaka
Summary: Nayoung turns hot and Sejeong loses sleep.





	1. part one of sejeong's suffering

**Author's Note:**

> [1] two-shots to kill my writer’s block and also more of an experimental writing than anything really jfjkgfgklg I want to try my hands on a more light-hearted uni/college au. The second half is still really rough so ill probably upload it in a few days, a week tops. Enjoy! :))
> 
> [2] file your complaints on the fail attempt at comedy in the comment section below orz

“Listen, I literally just broke it off with Seungwoo two days ago. A fling this soon wouldn’t look good on my name.”

Over the blasting trashy remix of some dubstep from the ‘05 criss-crossed with The Chainsmokers’ song everyone’s grown tired of, her ears could still catch the irritation in Jaehwan’s harsh-whisper, “I got you an invite. So you better come outta this party smashed and,” Jaehwan pauses, eyes scanning the rowdy dance floor to catch the word, and Sejeong follows her gaze to the firm butt of a guy hugged in leather, “and arms linked with a, uhh, _significant other_.”

“Jaehwannie, meeting my _future_ _significant other_ in a crass freshmen welcome party with male pole dancers means they’re not worth the keep. Not the best ‘how mommy meets daddy’ story for the kids.” Still, she lets Jaehwan whisk her away to some place away from the dance floor, somewhere dimmer. Jaehwan greets some familiar faces along the way, long “ _hiiiii_ ”s for the ladettes and concise, but pheromone-laced “ _hi_ ” for the lads with the looks. Jaehwan has always been the clichéd gay best friend of her own.

Since middle school.

So putting up with him this time around too should be a walk in the park. Unfortunately, Sejeong has downed quite a few polite drinks herself and she could feel the influence creeping in. Handicapped, the walk turns into a crawl.

Jaehwan parks full-stop at a crowd of three guys lounging around the bar, then he pulls a stool for himself and one for her, movement all practiced. Sejeong plays along.

The lights here are much dimmer than the dance floor’s. The harpooning beams of every flashy color possible is traded off for a much diminished hue of blue and purple. The blue makes it easier for the drowsier eyes and the purple sets all the flirty liners on the table. A mix of the two and you get the spot-on mood for impromptu reckless sex.

She knows where Jaehwan is going with this.

The blonde (Jaehwan recently dyed his hair a flashy shade of gold) chats the three guys. One of them pulls an adieu for the dance floor. One of them has his eyes twinkling for Jaehwan. The other one looks mostly disinterested. From this quick observation alone, Sejeong already knows the meathead that’s going to be her share for the night.

She’s still too sober to laugh at the raunchy jokes scattered around the flirty exchanges.

The topic is something about interests in general. Meathead #1 said something about mastering the _act_ of making lamb skewers and Sejeong’s sure there’s supposed to be an entendre on it _somewhere_ , but before she could give it a much-needed analysis, Meathead #2 is already onto her. “Any past-time ya fancy?”

“I like…” she feels Jaehwan’s gaze on her, “reading. And watching movies I’ve watched before.”

“That’s girly. I like it.” Meathead #2 licks his lower lip, probably thinking the lighting would curtain it in purple. “Pick a drink, I’ll get you one or two depending on how _things_ go.”

Jaehwan throws her a look as he stands back to his full-height followed by Meathead #1. Sejeong’s eyes are trained on them even when they both leave as a pair – no personal space left and hands all over each other. If Succubi were to be proven real, she’s sure Jaehwan’s among the Top 10 scorers.

“So? The drink?”

Sejeong fakes a mulling hum, then dissolves it with a smile, “Thanks, but I’ll pass, need my morning to be easy. Got things to do.”

“I wanna buy you something. Food? Girls your size could use some meat.” He leans in closer and Sejeong pictures him as a shark when his grin leans a little bit to the left. “I’m a pretty _meaty_ guy if I gotta say so myself.”

“I _think_ I’m suddenly vegan,” Sejeong averts her eyes to the new patron of the bar, two stools away behind Meathead #2. The smirk isn’t pleasing to her eyes and she’s in need of… something else to focus on.

“Oh.” Instead of pulling back from the decline, he leans even closer, too close for Sejeong’s comfort. “Then you won’t mind this _eggplant_.”

Sejeong feels her eye twitches. “Sooooo about the drink offer,”

“Offer’s closed, mate.” Meathead #2 must’ve been quite the snake, for Sejeong’s taken aback by the arm that’s already slithered around her thigh. “Mate. Haha. I say we _mate_ , ya know. Bow wow.”

The New Patron Person behind Meathead #2 rustles from their seat. Sejeong tries to look past Meathead #2’s hunk shoulders to signal a subtle help, but the lighting isn’t doing her any favor. Taking a detour to her past party-invites for a trick to get rid of a nosy horndog, she’s hit with a realization that there isn’t a lot of parties she’s ever been in. She’s never the party person. She had a boyfriend during her freshman year, so there was no urgent need for dance floor flings, in addition to her part-time of private teaching middle schools to keep further financial issues away. She was busy keeping up her honor student status while aiming for a scholarship back in high school, so she was too booked to fool around. She had a _good friend_ that disliked parties like this with an intense passion back in middle school, and she made sure to never let her astray.

Before she could stage a fainting act, Meathead #2 was tapped in the shoulder by The New Patron Person, the latter’s face obscured by the clunky lighting, a hand holding a glass of martini.

And in a voice that instills something in Sejeong, The New Patron Person— _she_ , says, “Hey, knock it off. You’re being a bother.”

Meathead #2 unlatches his attention off Sejeong and takes a quick roundup of the girl from head to toe. Sejeong can’t really see her from her spot due to a mix of the lighting and the fact that Jaehwan has her Myopia glasses confiscated for the night.

He raises from his seat to level with the girl. “What’s your problem?”

“Y, you’re the problem. You’re clearly being a bugger to her, Eyesore.”

Sejeong swallows a chuckle down her throat. Of _course_ she didn’t miss the way her savior stuttered on her hitter. Either way, it was _sort of_ cute.

Meathead #2 clearly doesn’t fancy the warning, as he slacks an arm around Sejeong’s shoulders and announces in his gruff tenor, “My b, we’re leaving. Not gonna play a spitting game at ya.” And he turns to Sejeong with a grin spooled with bad news. “C’mon Sejeong, we’re moving to somewhere snazzier. Rid of this basketcase so we can have some _fun_.”

In a rather unpredictable turn of event, the girl goes up to their side and splashes a fresh Martini up Meathead #2’s face while spewing out another warning. Sejeong winces not at the act, but the ugly fight that’s going to transpire from it.

And she’s right.

“What the hell do you want from me?” His snarl’s laced with venom and he has a fistful of the girl’s collar twisted upwards. “Say that you want the girl and go.”

“I want you to,” she snarls back, Sejeong readies a fist just in case, “I w, want you to get your slimy hands off her, you, uh, fucking _sewer rat_.”

Ineffective insult aside, it _is_ somehow enough to set Meathead #2 off as he flings an arm back ready to launch a clean hit on his target. But before she’s made his sandbag, Sejeong latches a grip onto his arm and musters her strength to twist his tensed muscle and earns herself a pained groan-roar. Sejeong seizes the chance and pulls his vulnerable self aside and he crashes onto one of the stool before falling onto the floor and hitting his head against the counter.

That marks her first ever bar fight. Hopefully also her last.

She grabs her _savior_ with her and power-walks to the dance floor, ignoring the few witnesses of their smack-down, past the inebriated bodies prowling under the colorful flashes and the bewitching dubstep beats.

Making sure they’re just two specks among the dancing drunks, Sejeong whips around to the other girl and hooks a palm flat on the slope of the girl’s neck, “Play along and pretend we’re too drunk to _not_ dance—“

“I am _sorry_ I was supposed to be the one doing the saving but oh _god_ I just can’t deal with jocks. Especially hunk ones, like, they look like they eat science major nutjobs for breakfast and drink their juiced brain matters for dinner.” The girl lays her apology and the extras all one in one breath, in a voice that tickles the temporal lobe of Sejeong’s brain. The voice feels familiar _somehow_.

Sejeong blinks once, twice, thrice, and is only brought back when she feels someone’s ass rubbing up against hers. “Oh, um, it’s okay. I don’t think I could find the chance to slam him down without your intervention, so yeah, thanks, um…”

Sejeong lets her sentence runs along since she hasn’t gotten the girl’s name, but now that they’re standing in some place with a decent lighting, she’s finally able to catch the girl’s features – the tired eyes, the sharp nose, the lower lip she idly brushes with a thumb. The cotton fluff of strawberry blonde shade she has for her hair that quietly invites Sejeong to burrow her face in there.

Turns out there’s no need for her to ask for the girl’s name. She could articulate all the syllables perfectly— _Kim. Na. Young. Kim Nayoung. Na. Young. Nayoung_ —the middle school buddy she’s lost years ago, and it’s funny because of all circumstances possible in their lifetime, they’re reunited among the clingy smell of alcohol and lit cigs. And it’s funnier when she realizes that Nayoung isn’t really the Nayoung from years before. Middle School Nayoung wouldn’t be caught dead lounging around in a party. This Nayoung has lost her round-rimmed glasses, her freckles, and her childish pigtails. This Nayoung has traded her knitted vest for a bomber.

“Hey,” she says, after eons of silence.

“Hey,” Sejeong replies, equally bummed. _Welcome back_ , she actually wanted to say.

 

* * *

 

“Which prince charming brought you home?”

Sejeong isn’t even ten steps outside her room and she’s already attacked by Hakyeon’s question. She laughs and it comes off forced because she isn’t even smiling, and Hakyeon looks up from the quick toast breakfast he’s been concocting.

“A… friend. She’s nice, we clicked well in the party.”

A misstep and now Hakyeon’s probing deeper. “She?”

“Yeah. She’s a she. A nice She. I wasn’t looking for a hook-up, gee,” Sejeong tacks a light giggle along and slips into a seat, eyes the two plates, and feels the half-truth nibbling her from within. She’s withholding an information from her brother, probably the _only_ man she trusts with all her life, and even though the bits and pieces concerning Nayoung is nothing groundbreaking nor life-threatening, it’s still _something_. “The weather—“

“You fucked a _she_?”

Sejeong’s halfway into biting her toast, so she replies by knitting her eyebrows in a comical wrath.

Hakyeon’s frown isn’t of disapproval. Hopefully. “You’re into _she_ s now?”

“No—I mean, I don’t know, but that’s not the point.” At the way Hakyeon’s face bunches defiantly at his trade-marked lips, Sejeong relents, feeling all the words sloshing past her lips. “Nayoung is back. I saw her in the party—somehow, which is bumming cause she would _never_ go to parties and years before she was such a house slug it took me hours long of pep talk to drag her outside and last night she was also in a bomber and not some lame ass clothing from the 70’s. And—“

Hakyeon lifts his glass and downs a gulp of water and puts the glass back all in a calm poise. “Good? You were really chummy with her back then. You two used to watch movies she rentaled together in the living room. Invite her over for a dinner for old time’s sake?”

“Oh my god, no,” her laugh is only half-genuine as she abandons her breakfast and sinks into her seat, “not happening any time soon. I didn’t even ask her numbers. I don’t know which ‘dept she is in. So that’s that. The weather—“

“Jaehwan kidnapped you to a party where people mate and you ended up reuniting with your childhood bud instead? That’s pretty novel. People would kill for that kind of drama.”

“Yup,” and it’s simply a _yup_ until Sejeong confesses, “except that she’s not. She _was_ , god, she was, until we had a fallout ‘cause I put her on a blast. ‘Cause my dumb middle school self said all those horrible things. All because she said she _liked me_ that _way_.”

It was the usual friendship-turned-ugly kind of story, but fast forward five years later, Sejeong’s voice still wavers through the recount. Regret sweeps over Sejeong and suddenly she feels fifteen all over, except now Nayoung’s back instead of leaving, and Nayoung’s sneaking back into her life styled in something 21st century instead of her grandma’s hand-me-downs.

Last night she was re-introduced to Nayoung’s signature giggle. It remains mostly the same even through the years, only matured by a tinge.

Still, Nayoung is still the very same Nayoung she hurt years ago, and she knows the free ride she got last night was far from their last encounter.

 

* * *

 

On Wednesdays, she and Jaehwan go on an outing where they try out moderately-priced eating spots for hours of gossips, gay tell-tales (from Jaehwan’s side), philosophical life woes (from Sejeong’s side), and mostly mindless chatter. Sometimes they’re not a duo. Her friends tend to fill them in with the university’s happenings. Jaehwan’s friends are all loud chums with (faux) designer clothes. She doesn’t have any tutoring schedule on Wednesday, so she’s freed for the rest of the day. Either way, Wednesday’s afternoon is usually an uneventful eventful time for Sejeong.

This time around, the start is rockier. Jaehwan says, voice apologetic as his shoulders slacken after a thorough checking on his jeans’ pockets and his bag, “I forgot my wallet. I think I left it in my last class. We gotta dash back to my ‘dept and get it before it’s gone for good.”

“Sure. We’re not that far off your building anyway.”

Jaehwan, voice slightly shaken by his power-walk, then says in the most scrupulous tone, “Plus, we might run into your _Nayoungie_.”

‘Nayoungie’ was the nick of a girl with unruly fashion sense, bad hair styling, and grandma glasses. 2017 Nayoung has probably grown out of the moniker.

The thought of running into Nayoung brings a frown to her face, for some reason. “I don’t think she’s doing engineering. I mean – really, _Nayoung_?”

“We have plenty of girls doing engineering, I mean, it’s still a Men’s World here but, you know, it’s engineering,” Jaehwan pauses to catch a breath, “we nest nerds.”

She squints an eye as a straying strand of hair threatens to poke her eyeball clean. The wind’s rough on her hair. “Okay, but like, other science-y majors exist. What are the odds?”

The moment they step into the building, they’re greeted with a rather busy hallway, with people coming in and out of the building in waves. Jaehwan ushers the two of them to the class by cutting corners and shouldering a few bumps. At least until they’re three classes away.

The hallway is densely packed and the hallway is busied by an a capella, backed by rhymed claps, then Sejeong sees a group of people lined up – the very singers. Some of them are carrying a box with the top shaved off which some goers put pennies into.

Jaehwan, rubbing his shoulder after bumping into another body, sheds a light into the situation, “Ohhhh yeah, the civil engineering peeps are doing this yesterday too. They’re fundraising for a project—hey, excuse me, don’t push especially not your canned coffee. This shirt cost me a fortune.”

The acapella itself isn’t too bad, lacking instruments aside, they’re singing a mashup of the “in” pop songs in harmonies. Proof that they have people with musical flair in the major.

When Sejeong bumps into something, it’s not quite a person. Or rather, another one of those fundraising box, carried by a klutz that happens to get into her way. Before Sejeong could coin a quick apology, she looks up to,

Strawberry blonde. Tired eyes. Sharp nose. Giacometti-sculpted jawline…

What are the odds?

“Oh, hey, um,” Sejeong sputters, a hand autopilots itself to the top of her head, trying to comb the mess the spring wind made, “fancy seeing you here… Nayoung.”

“Oh, yeah… we’re doing a fundraising project,”

“Fundraising.” Sejeong parrots as her eyes wander far past Nayoung, to Jaehwan’s retreating figure as he ducks into the classroom. Now that she’s left to dry, she might as well make the coincidental reunion a smooth run-in. “Tell me about it so I know the pennies are in good hands?”

“Well,” Nayoung starts, the Nayoung Grin creeps onto her face, (and Sejeong pretends she isn’t affected), “we have this big project in July where we do donations, giveaways, open concert, there’s gonna be a showroom for our works too… the usual, really. Oh! We’re gonna give packs of food, rations, and secondhand clothes to the poor. That’s the whole point of the project really. We’ve been putting on shows here and there to raise the fund so if you like it maybe you can drop a gold or two?” Nayoung shakes the box a little and it makes dull thumps of coins kissing one another and shuffling of paper money.

“Cool! Good luck on the project. Gotta support everything humanitarian.” Sejeong slides in some paper money into the jagged hole. Then, she sees Jaehwan approaching them, steps relaxed. His puckered lips suggest that he’s whistling, even, though it sounds muted with the acapella going on the background.

“Anyway, Sejeong, if your friends are interested in donating, whether it’s money or secondhand stuff, just contact me.” Nayoung tilts the box enough for Sejeong to really read the marker scrawls on the front. There’s Nayoung’s number written in blue, the writing sharp and stilted around the edges. Same old Nayoung.

There’s Nayoung’s number.

Sejeong laughs her most forced one yet (of the day) as she takes out her phone with the intention to snap a pic of Nayoung’s contact information, keeping in mind to keep the pic starred among the favorites. “Suuuure. I’ll take a pic. I have, ummm, some friends who would be so keen on humanitarian stuff like this,”

And that’s when Jaehwan pipes in. “God, what friend? Mimi is a tightwad—“

“Alright, thanks, now I can rope my friends into donating,” _and with this supreme knowledge I’ll be able to search for your Facebook page too. Perfect._ “But you know kids these days are all about those socialite social media, it’s the era of information and all and by that I mean can I also have your Instagram? For humanitarian purposes, I swear.”

 

* * *

 

“Okay, but peep this. I think they’re dating.”

Jaehwan scoots closer, squints at the screen shoved onto his face, then goes back to his dragon fruit smoothie all in the span of five seconds.

Sejeong sighs, retracts her arm, then goes back to Nayoung’s Instagram profile, going back to the display of thumbnails after she’s done over-analyzing a photo of a girl giving Nayoung a friendly, platonic peck on the cheek.

Internally cringing at her own downplaying, she corrects herself.

A photo of a very hot girl (even a straightie would be hard-pressed to deny it) with enrapturing eyes giving Nayoung a questionable kiss on the cheek with her arms slung questionably around Nayoung’s neck. Another detail to add is the carton birthday hat on Nayoung’s head that tipped too far to the edge and its too-loose string. The other girl also had hers on.

“Sejeong sweetie,” Jaehwan starts slow, tone mock-motherly, “your illiterate butt gotta give the caption a read. You see the word ‘birthday’, ‘surprise’, ‘party’, and ‘Hana’ there? Yes, no petnames. They’re friends. She’s thrown a small surprise birthday party and there’s nothing scandalous about that.”

“Yes. Okay. Now, onto the scientific explanation for the kiss.”

Jaehwan is a dedicated bioengineering student who particularly excels at two things: relationships and scandalous relationships. Sejeong knows he’s the go-to gay bestfriend slash personal counselor to crack the code.

But today, neither of them are in their patience zone. “Sejeong _sweetie_ , who hurt you?”

“I stormed through two tests today and I think I flunked one. Please be gentle on me.”

Jaehwan opens and promptly closes his mouth into a pursed thin line and snatches the phone in her hand, reopens the photo, and thumbs the screen right on Nayoung’s pecked cheek. “Kisses aren’t promise rings, god. Friends kiss. I gave Wonshik some mouth action but do you see either of us walking down the aisle for the other? No. We put the Plato in Platonic and you don’t have to be Socrates to nail that one down. These ladies might just be lady-friends.”

“Some mouth action? You _blew_ him!”

“We were drunk…”

Sejeong reaches for her phone, but Jaehwan’s grip on it tightens instead. His eyes sweep the screen with his brow curiously arched. When his grip loosen and Sejeong regains reign over her own phone, Jaehwan’s pensive hum demands an explanation. She tries with a, “What are you thinking about?”

“On second thought, you’re right. I think they’re a thing. One way to find out… hit her up and reel the ‘yes’ outta her yourself.”

Sejeong’s knee jerk reaction is a derisive laugh that sounds way too cynical for a Kim Sejeong, “Casually sliding into her DMs asking if she’s no longer available for promise rings?”

“Well, yeah, go ahead. Dunno why you’re so dead-set on knowing whether she has a girl or not though, I mean, what are you, her mom?”

“We were friends!” A second later, the reasoning sounds reaching at best. The past tense was certainly there for a reason – she regained contact with Nayoung some days ago and she’s yet to really hit her up with even the most harmless “hi” (or “hiii” if she’s feeling peachier).

Her overblown curiosity on the subject is plain unfair in nature considering that she was the one who rejected Nayoung years ago.

She doesn’t let her mind revisit the happenings years back and stares at Jaehwan in the eyes, “Jaehwan?”

“Mmmmm?”

“Did any of us _really_ press like on the photo?”

“Uhh. Might be my thumb.”

“Oh my _god_ you fucking _dimwit_ that photo was posted on APRIL 2016 and we’re at APRIL 2017!” Feeling a migraine coming her way, she sets her phone down and buries her face in a hand. “Fuck, Jaehwan,”

“What?”

“On the scale of one to ten how screwed do you think I am?”

Jaehwan blinks. “It stops at ten?”

 

* * *

 

Sejeong _really_ slid into Nayoung’s DMs and she had never been so thankful of her communicating skills. The conversation wasn’t really awkward, Nayoung’s typos were ice-breaker they needed, and Sejeong’s plotty ass secured a Saturday date in her department’s cafeteria after remembering rumors on how the engineering department’s eatery were laden with Asian fuckboys. Her department’s is tamer in comparison, also quieter.

“Sooo,” Sejeong unchews her straw, recharged with enough chocolate smoothie to tap a toe onto the topic, “you changed a whole lot since the last time I saw you up close.”

Nayoung’s chopsticks idly pick on her noodles, eyes down on the table as her voice drips of sheepishness. “I can’t stay looking like a soggy noodle forever…”

“I mean, you were definitely not the class’ fashionista back then since you never really cared that much about your appearance anyway, but you weren’t that bad. Unpolished. I’ll go with it.”

“Lies,” Nayoung laughs.

It sounds a little bit too forced on Sejeong’s ears.

“Your glo-up is _certainly_ inspiring though. That color looks good on you too, nice choice on hair dye.” She does a dive-save. “Out of boredom, I rolled through your photos on Instagram.”

Nayoung looks up from her late-lunch almost immediately. Sejeong really clocked on the topic she’s been meaning to bring up, apparently. “I saw. I got the notif so I added you.”

 _Of course she got a notif_. “Yeah. I was _so_ bored in class I didn’t notice I hit April last year.” Sejeong lies through her teeth. “She’s really pretty. The girl in the photo I _accidentally_ liked, I mean.”

“Boredom, I can relate.” Nayoung’s looks downcast. “I sorta wish I take up something I actually like instead of something I _thought_ I needed.”

It’s amazing how she never looks on edge enough for people to notice even when she’s conjuring the most ridiculous lies.

Or maybe Nayoung just doesn’t want to talk about it, but she doubts Nayoung is _that_ intuitive.

A waiter alights by their table carrying Nayoung’s peculiar order, the monthly special jumbo chocolate shake that’s been promoted as the weekly favorite drink twice in a row. Sejeong had a taste of it back when Eunwoo ordered and remember rating it an A- for a university cafeteria menu, which translates to a B among drinks in general. Rather cheap price aside, the size makes it taxing to order solo, so it’s perfect for great value dates.

Nayoung thanks the waiter and while she sets the two straws she requested (two?), she asks her, “Why educational English lit?”

“I find education majors challenging. You deal with people and guide them a step forward to where they want to be. I part-time tutoring kids for some pocket money, so I’m plenty sure now that teaching is a perfect fit for me.”

“You tutor? Middle-school kids? High-school?”

“I’ve been tutoring both. My old textbooks are my saviors, thank god I only doodled at the edges back then.”

Nayoung hums. “Can you take up one more student under your wing?”

“I think so cause I only have one at the moment. The other recently finished high school. Shameless plugging, she got into the university she wanted too.” Sejeong adds a discreet wink to look more convincing.

“I think I’m gonna ‘rec you to a needing soul. Her sis is actually a brilliant student, but she’s aiming for a top uni, so she’s been a little jittery. An extra ‘oomph’ would push her to confidence.”

Sejeong takes the chance to snipe back. “Okay, sure. On the subject of majors though, why civil engineering? You’ve always been interested in music.”

Something passes over Nayoung’s complexion. Something she couldn’t quite catch. Nayoung, for a split second, a cynical ghost possessed Nayoung’s upturned lips. It was quickly snuffed out by a short string of laughter, strung together with a quiet, “No, I don’t think majors like applied music would suit me,” and a quieter, “as you told me years ago,” then a much louder, “finish this with me please?”

One of the straws is turned to her direction. The humongous glass is set in the middle of their two persons table.

She regrets ever coining the drink as a couple drink.

Taking a nerve-wrecking sip, she feels so juvenile to ever feel _things_ towards shared drinks, especially that of between lady-friends. Lady-were-friends.

“Anyway,” Nayoung fishes her phone out of her pocket, her hand slips, she almost drops it, but somehow she manages to tow it back before her phone makes a contact with the floor (some things never change, Sejeong thinks, not even with that perfect hue of hair dye) and Nayoung fiddles with said phone, “I’m telling her that you’re okay with taking her sis. She’s probably online at the moment so she will message you any time soon.”

“Cool!” Sejeong manages to get out before going back to chew on her straw. Her screen lights up almost three seconds later. Anticipation rises. Her eyes zoom into the name of the sender and from afar, the heavy clanking of a waiter dropping a tray serves as the most befitting sound effect.

_Shin Hana: good afternoon; this is the right kim sejeong who’s been recommended as an excellent tutor i assume?_


	2. nayoung suffered a bit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nayoung suffered a little bit just a little

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: [1] jeon seungah is a fictional person I made up cause I needed a megabitch for the chapter
> 
> [2] im sorry for the delay… my sem’s finally over and I had too many things on my platter, also I extended the middle school days into a chapter and im glad I did cause the fic makes more sense now
> 
> [3] thank you for putting up with me……………

Sejeong was fourteen when Nayoung was shipped straight to the infirmary after taking an incoming ball for her. With her face.

The two girls who were forced to get to the menial work didn’t look too happy having to carry the mess of limbs that were Nayoung, but Sejeong believed it was also due to Nayoung being sweaty beyond belief after running laps for her remedial and getting forcefully hauled to the friendly volleyball match set up by their teacher. Sejeong’s team (sans herself) droned a “ _yeeeeeees_ ” in a calculated unison when their teacher crane-dropped Nayoung into their team, knowing full-well that Nayoung wouldn’t last a set without dropping dead out of exhaustion or getting into a comical incident that would be forgotten by the next period.

That day it was a combination of both. Sejeong’s Keds squeaked against the gym floor as she pretty much flew to Nayoung’s side. Their teacher handpicked two bench-warmers to drag Nayoung’s unconscious body out of the gym, insinuating that Sejeong was at least in the field out there racking points for her team. Eyeballs slid. Someone shouted a demand to get on with the game and it was mutually agreed.

“Don’t forget to apologize to Kim Nayoung later.” The teacher said to Nayoung’s murderer of the day.

The girl, natural born _queenka_ Jeon Seungah, sounded an insincere “ _yeeeeeeees_ ” and scrimmaged back into her team. Sejeong was never fond of her _queenie_ attitude, but the girl was generally well-liked as much as she was well-feared.

Sejeong swiped the sweat hanging under her brief nose and tried to get her mind back into the game, but alas, Nayoung stayed on her mind, and she missed all her points afterwards.

 

* * *

 

Being the closest thing Nayoung had to a close friend, she shouldered the duty of collecting Nayoung’s things with her to save the injured a trip back to the classroom. Her friends tried to rope her into a three-lady gossips over parfait conference, but she turned it down for the volunteer work of checking up on Nayoung, knowing that nobody else would take up the job. She’d get her payment in smiles and a free tutoring on her math homework.

Her friends called her “too nice”, Sejeong brushed it off with a quick joke, though she’d be lying if that didn’t riffle her a bit.

Nothing wrong with being a responsible citizen who’s willing to care for even the lowest of social pariahs.

Not that Nayoung was one, she was just… ignored most of the time, for being mostly unremarkable and detached from the rest of the class. She was never spoke of as the more attractive ones and she wasn’t particularly sterling in academics, and to make things worse, Nayoung wasn’t a part of any clique. She was that one sentient in every class that’s just _there_.

Sejeong, queen of charity work, somehow befriended her a few weeks ago after they were paired for a history assignment. Nayoung ended up doing the greater chunk of the work, but at least she gained a friend out of the whole ordeal – a _Kim Sejeong_ , even. That should’ve given her a boost in her social standing by a jitter.

She made a quick stop at the changing room to get Nayoung’s uniform. Some blurred faces greeted her along the way, but she was way too distracted for anything more than a botched _hey_. A quarter past 4 PM, she alighted in the infirmary with both her and Nayoung’s bags.

The infirmary’s surly silence greeted her this time, the nurse unusually absent. The beds were emptied save for Nayoung’s, the furthest in the row, its occupant awake but laid like she was awaiting death. Sejeong intervened by suiting herself into the empty seat by her bedside, bags sidelined to the small nightstand. “How are you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?”

“Peachy.” Nayoung’s answer was stout but clear-cut, eyebrows kinked downward.

Sejeong’s eyes nitpicked on Nayoung’s swollen left cheek. “Your cheek looks like it’s growing another cheek.”

Nayoung looked unamused with the remark. Still, her hand came up to her cheek, gesture reeking of diffidence. “You’re welcome.”

“Miss this?” Sandwiched between the folded shirt and skirt were Nayoung’s glasses, which Sejeong pulled out slowly to avoid bending the frame any worse. “The frame’s bent though…”

She passed the pair onto Nayoung’s fingers. Under Nayoung’s scrutinizing glare, the glasses looked twice miserable.

“It’s okay, I’ll be heading straight home after this.” Nayoung said after pulling her bag from the nightstand onto her lap, unzipping it open, and gently pocketing the glasses inside the bag. “I’m gonna skip cram for today, both my parents are on business trips so I’ll have the house to myself.”

“I wanna go to your house.”

Nayoung looked taken aback. Sejeong let her; she was definitely not used to take in guests in the form of school friends.

“I hope you don’t mind?” Sejeong leaned a tad closer, tried to seek Nayoung’s eyes.

Nayoung’s eyes were downcast, gaze focused on finding incoherent pattern on the ruffled sheets. “There’s nothing there.”

“Fine, you don’t want me in the house. At least let me walk you back home?” She tried in a mock-angry tone complete with the slight tilt of the head.

The reaction she got was almost too immediate, Nayoung’s eyebrows panicking into twinning high arc. “I—okay, uh, fine, god,” and in a much smaller voice, she mumbled, “I really can’t win against you, huh…”

 

* * *

 

“I went to Nayoung’s house yesterday. The ceiling was high enough to accommodate three Thailand elephants put on top of one another. A grandfather clock stood tall in the living room and I’m pretty sure the thing is worth more than us three combined. My estimates? Million something won for something that tells you the time.”

Her friends promptly paused from their parfait snacking. Sejeong made a stretched pause before adding in the stinger. “Nayoung is _rich_.”

Eunwoo probed deeper into the curious world of Nayoung’s wealthy family while Chaekyung listened with a cocked eyebrow. Sejeong, at the time, understood the shock, as they were talking about the Nayoung whose fashion sense was in the negatives. Grandmothers of too-ripe age would somehow look funky when they’re put beside Nayoung.

“Then she’s a keeper,” Chaekyung concluded after a pop of cherry, “no wonder you guys are friends.”

Sejeong made a playful snort. She hoped it sounded playful enough.

 

* * *

 

She had an odd friendship with an upperclassman in the drama club. Lee Jaehwan, an affectionate nickname of “Ken” in his house, but more often than not, she heard people from his year call him feminine-sounding names. She supposed it was all due to his smoother gait, a contrast to the gruff masculinity guys his age tried so hard to emulate. His voice wasn’t as deep as the other guys, but she heard him sing before, and wondered if he was hand-crafted by god into becoming a future musical actor.

Club meeting was cancelled that day but she happened to miss the memo, so she found out from a lone, grumbling Jaehwan who wouldn’t shut up about his scheduled cleaning duty. Mostly because the other girl on duty ditched him for a coffee date.

“Me and some others hung around the clubroom yesterday and the current captain of the basketball team dropped by – what’s his name again. Rowoon?”

Jaehwan offered her the other broom. She declined by not even sparing it a glance. “Rowoon. We’re in the same class. Why?”

“Uh, I dunno. He hasn’t hit you up the whole day?”

She and Rowoon did greet each other during the morning, but it was nothing more than an exchange of pleasantries. The boy, towering in height and wide of shoulder, was stellar in attitude. Everyone was fond of him.

She then concluded, “He’s probably forgotten about it. Definitely nothing important though, I might be failing _some_ classes but my attendance is a straight A.”

“Girl, lemme lay it down for you, a guy tried to find you, in sweats and outfit screaming BASKETBALL in bright red Chiller, and the school’s anniversary festival coming soon. Do the puzzle yourself.”

They had a week or so left until the school’s anniversary festival and it was among the hot topics. A bonfire dance was scheduled at the penultimate end, and people had been abuzz with talks of going to the dance hand in hand with someone else.

“Oh.” Sejeong casted her gaze onto the agglomerating dusts on the floor. “Is there a thesaurus for polite rejections?”

“God, give him a chance? Guy looks good. Or pass him over.”

She laughed at Jaehwan’s hunched back as he attempted to sweep the floor. “You’re both guys, dumbo. Who’s gonna be the girl?”

“What? Us both boys.”

The concept was sort of foreign to her at the time. The idea of boy-and-boy didn’t quite fit the norm. The world of middle school didn’t have any room left for anomalies.

She swallowed back the “ _were your parents both dudes too?_ ” quip that almost spilled out and opted to drop the topic entirely. “To be honest, I don’t have much opinion on Rowoon. He’s nice. And tall. He looks good,” Sejeong paused, taking the time to give the opinion some actual thinking, “he’d make a fine street lamp.”

Jaehwan’s laughter dissipated into thin silence the moment the door slid open to a sensually sweaty Rowoon. Sensually, she emphasized. There was no other way to describe the carefully pre-empted emission of pheromone.

Sejeong grimaced at the unwelcome stink invading her senses. Jaehwan showed his displeasure too.

Boys started being less and less of a prince and more and more of a discomfort during this age.

“Sejeong,” he said, voice an emulated gruff, and his words were minced by gratuitous post-team sports pant, “do you have some time?”

 

* * *

 

Nayoung was taken aback, to say the least. She could tell even though they were speaking on phone. “ _Why did you turn him down?”_

“First of all, he was sweaty as heck.”

_“That’s how boys market their masculinity. But that aside, he’s a nice guy!”_

“Besides, our lord and savior Jeon Seungah likes him. Anyone— _anything_ she likes, she’ll get.” Sejeong switched the phone to her left shoulder after feeling the cramp along the strained side of the neck. Rowoon was a good guy with even better track record – she could write an entire treatise on him based off her impressions and the girls’ locker room talk – but she really couldn’t bring herself to throw out the ‘ _sure_ ’. _I’m really sorry, I already have some plans myself_ came out instead. “You would turn him down if you were in my shoes too, Queenie Seungah aside. He smelled like horse.”

_“Well…”_

Rowoon was the third guy she had to politely turn down that week, so she was 3/4th convinced that she’d end up skipping the festivity. There was only one other person in the whole school who would voluntarily miss out on such occasion, Sejeong was the surest to even the microscopic details. “You’re not going there right?”

 _“You know me so well_. _”_

Sejeong idly did a half-spin with her spinning chair. “Let’s have a sleepover.”

_“Sure. But won’t your friends expect you to attend?”_

At Nayoung’s expected question, she tucked her legs in, flat against her chest. “I’ll tell them I’m already booked for a 5'4" date.”

 _“We’re both girls, you know_ ,”

Then a raspy laugh resounded from the other end of the line and it tied Sejeong’s lips into a tight smile. Nayoung warned her that she would regret it, but Sejeong thought about a dense flock of one-off couples and sweaty guys and finalized her decision with a blown kiss over the line, and hung up halfway into Nayoung’s flustered stumble.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the week could be summed up like this: Rowoon had the persistence of a mold. Jeon Seungah’s evil eye on her got thornier with every passing day. Nayoung remained a sweetheart. Or some sort of herbaceous vine that kept her rooted despite the plain appearance.

This evening, she invited Nayoung to her house for the third time ever after thinking about how the girl would only come back to an empty house and emptier fridge. Dirt poor as they were as a family, her mom and Hakyeon would still stock the fridge with edible things. Nayoung was a clueless teen with money she didn’t know how to spend and hands with the sole skill of concocting instant noodles.

So she invited her in, since her mother and Hakyeon wouldn’t mind the company, and Nayoung was a pleasant one if not downright too-pleasant. Nayoung was the all-ears, no-mouth kind of friend.

A dinner of four in the household had always been a rare occurrence, but Nayoung fit snugly into the fourth seat of their four-person table and the sight of her mother chatting Nayoung up about school looked so mundane, Sejeong had a double-take once she realized that Nayoung was never a part of the family to begin with.

“Sejeong,” her mother snapped her out of her reverie, “you never told me you’ve gotten yourself a bestie.”

Because Nayoung _never_ was. She might be the person Nayoung talked to the most in class (or the whole school even) but there was a galaxy of things she was yet to know about Nayoung. But to Nayoung, Sejeong’s Personal Advisor, she was probably an open book. The stars never seemed to align.

At her mother’s bestie comment, Nayoung stuttered with her filler reply and Sejeong chewed on her food.

 

* * *

 

Her mother asked her to go on an errand shortly after dinner, leaving Nayoung and Hakyeon to do the dishes. Sejeong casted her brother _the look_ before side-walking out of the house as a grave warning.

Somewhere along the way, she sensed Hakyeon’s mischievousness blocks away from her house and quickened her pace, carrying a tight-lipped prayer.

She came back to the living room devoid of any human being sans Nayoung. Sejeong seized the other end of the sofa.

“Did Hakyeon tell you things?”

“He told me things,”

 _Of course_. “Spill. Leave no single droplet.”

The TV was on and some popular game show Sejeong never bothered to watch came back on after a string of loud advertisement jingles after another. It casted this faint flow of blue and yellow along Nayoung’s side-profile, and somehow it was little moments like this that etched itself deep in Sejeong’s collection of middle school memories. These hard-boiled entries, ink bolder and pages chiseled too-deeply by the scrawled characters, stood out among the fading pages.

But Nayoung’s smile that night was lost in translation. “He told me to look after you.”

Sejeong sailed closer to the side of the sofa Nayoung was docked at. “Silly. Who’s the girl that’s been saving you from doing group projects alone?”

Nayoung grumbled her response, an index finger idly scratching the cheek where Salonpas was strained taut along a red patch. The left cheek. Sejeong remembered which side it was, because that night, she was drunk in the atmosphere enough to close the distance between her lips and Nayoung’s tight cheekbone, just above the Salonpas, and when she pulled back and told Nayoung, _kisses win over pain reliever, trust me_ , she laughed at the color red spreading along Nayoung’s cheeks that won over the blue and yellow hue.

 _Kidding, kidding,_ she said, at the time, after Nayoung hurled the sofa’s pillow playfully at her.

 _I know_ , was Nayoung’s reply.

They had a sleepover that night, and somehow, Nayoung was the first of her middle school friends to ever spend a night in there. But also somehow, Nayoung hogged the furthest end and vehemently refused to scoot closer.

 

* * *

 

A day after the bonfire dance she didn’t attend, during the break, she realized too late that the rather demure feel of the class that day and the hushed whispers throughout the first half of the second period were all included in a giant clusterfuck of a set-up Rowoon and his yes-men prepared beforehand.

She realized it all too late. The entire classroom had the entire thing choreographed along with a pre-planned chant of _accept! Accept!_ and they have all the doors (and windows) blocked by a barricade of living meat shield, so Sejeong was out of option.

The influence Rowoon had on their class was show-stopping. Their cluttered bunch of skippers and cliques banded together for a juvenile confession scenario. Though her eyes couldn’t find Seungah among the blurring cheek-to-cheek smiles and loose laughter.

Rowoon had a bouquet of flowers. Sejeong felt herself coloring, all kinds of shocked.

“Go out with me?” He said, almost too meekly—

—she replied with an _I’m sorry_ before he could finish his sentence.

 

* * *

 

She took the bouquet home – he insisted still, despite getting stream-rolled in front of his own class. On the way home, she offered it to Nayoung, but she looked too out of it to emit anything further than a curt _no, keep it, he gave it to you_. Sejeong rolled with it, giving the bouquet another whiff before pulling her friend into one smothering hug (Nayoung returned her a slight smile that was a bit too askew, but nothing more). They then parted ways.

The scent that lingered with her back home didn’t seem to be the flowers’.

“I didn’t buy this myself! Um, a guy gave it to me.” She explained to her mom’s arched brows before she could even articulate a question.

“Do you want to vase it?”

“Yeah,” her eyes jumped onto their age old dinner table and dragged it into an excuse, “the table could use some love.”

Hakyeon, his eyes still on the primetime evening TV program, probed into their conversation, “You keep sentimental flowers in your room.”

“The _table_ could use some love.” She reasoned. And hoped it sounded reasonable enough. Her mother had the flower neatly arranged into the rather too fit vase and Hakyeon, with all the free time he had at the time, looked up the Sentimental (capital S) meaning of the flowers, and Sejeong waddled into her own room before she could get the flowers translated into a language she could speak.

Her room smelled of something different, not flowers, but close enough.

 

* * *

 

The confession left an aftermath that she just wanted to get over with. Rowoon was undoubtedly jumpy around her, but it was the way people would skirted around the topic of Rowoon around her that started to get onto her.

“These sad creatures really wished they could have had any semblance of love life. All they’ve got is someone else’s to poke their noses into.” Nayoung flared a spat at the class’ recent behavior. Sejeong agreed with a hum.

It wasn’t until later, when she found herself getting randomly grouped with Nayoung _and_ Seungah for a biology project that required them to spend some quality time with each other in a rather secluded corner in the library. Seungah decided that she wants some place far away from the crowd of hunched backs after a couple of desk-hopping.

For a social butterfly in the making, admittedly, Sejeong never really sparked much conversation with Seungah unless needed. Something about clashing personalities.

Mostly because Seungah had Bad News as her everyday perfume, and Sejeong was particularly allergic to that one fragrance.

As they went on a prowl with their own reading material, to keep things the slightest bit groovy, her mind roamed listlessly among a sea of topics. She settled with something easy. “What’s new these days among the peeps?”

Nayoung kept mum while Seungah did the answering. “Nothing much. We’re still hot on the grand confession last week.”

She tapped Seungah’s knuckle playfully with a finger. “Move on,”

Seungah looked up from the phone nestled atop her open book. “It’s not that easy, Heartbreaker.”

“You tell me about it,” Sejeong flipped a page, and this was the part where her reading comprehension lessened and her conscience began to dissect words and look too much into meanings.

“Okay, I’ll lay it down for you,” Seungah had her fingers knitted atop the desk, “people have been doing some guess-work on you. We’re curious, what’s the secret between all these rejections?”

“What?”

“Is Kim Sejeong liking that status quo, or is she just,” Seungah pursed her lips in-between, sounding a tentative _hmmm_ , “or just… not into boys?”

“What?”

“If you catch my drift.”

Something in her boiled. The question felt too prying and invasive. The idea of her classmates discussing it among themselves clung to her like weights.

She abandoned her own reading material to glare at Seungah square in the eyes and flexed stout shoulders. “It flew way past me.”

“What I’m saying is,”

“Girls,” Nayoung bladed into their seething exchanges, and she noticeably winced at her own decision to speak up, pausing before going on with the latter fraction of the sentence, “there’s a deadline to catch. Seungah, get your phone off your book before I surgically remove it myself.”

Seungah unlatched her attention off Sejeong and moved onto Nayoung. Sejeong found it funny how Nayoung said all that while also simultaneously avoiding Seungah in the eye. “You know, Kim Nayoung, this is the first time we _really_ talk to each other. Didn’t you know you have it in you.”

“Seungah, we have no time for repeats.”

Seungah bared fangs this time. Metaphorically. “If you want to tell me things, at least look at me in the eye. My eyes are up there.”

Nayoung’s eyes stayed on her book. Seungah plowed onto hers soon after, every flip of page enunciated with unsubtle anger. Sejeong tried to make the best out of the tension – speaking was minimal, so she was able to regain her reading comprehension without mediating off a toilet break.

Until Seungah pickaxed the silence apart with a curious question, “How did you guys become so close anyway? Never seen you guys being that chummy with each other until, like, recently.”

Nayoung didn’t budge. Not even a quiver along the bottom lip. No intention to answer at all.

She gave Nayoung a side-glance, then settled with the best non-answer she could get. “We aren’t _that_ close. We’re friends.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re friends with everybody.”

“I am. Right, Nayoung?”

A harsh flip of the page (which Sejeong didn’t try to decipher) and then, “Yeah, we’re just the usual friends.”

“Could you two be a thing?” Seungah questioned.

Sejeong torpedoed into a quick shut down, “God, _no_ , we’re just friends. I don’t like girls _that_ way.” And Seungah broke into a laugh, and shot a prodding finger at her knuckles, and it prompted a playful _god, no, **gross**!_ out of Sejeong, and she closed the topic off with a snort. Hopefully for good, at least until Seungah decided there was no story to milk off it.

Nayoung remained quiet for the rest of the session.

 

* * *

 

On the way home, Sejeong asked Nayoung to join her family for dinner tonight, and Nayoung was so out of it she told Sejeong the homework was the English workbook, page 89, starting from the first part. Sejeong called her silly and gave the Salonpasless left cheek a thick pinch and Nayoung forgot to react.

And Sejeong laughed, but the laughter felt way too lonesome.

 

* * *

 

Things escalated a bit way too quickly for her to handle. From their botched presentation of said project (Nayoung and Seungah would rather eat a live mole rat than cooperating with each other), to the waves of exam weeks third years were force-fed of, to Eunwoo and Chaekyung dropping the bomb.

Over a delicacy made by cross-breeding waffle and ice cream, Chaekyung took the time to ruminate on her words. “Sooo, like, I don’t really know how to break the news gently enough so you won’t go on a rampage. Those guns could definitely break my calf in half.”

Eyelids low and mind elsewhere, Sejeong replied in autopilot, “Go on.”

She hadn’t been sleeping well even though they were past midterms. There was not much rest for third years as everyone broke legs to make it to all the high-ranking high schools. Sejeong was never studious to begin with and she felt the need for big leaps in order to catch up. Sleep was made a sacrifice (one of the lots).

Eunwoo cut to the chase, patience running thin, expressed through her gesture of leaning closer. “According to the rumor mills you and Nayoung— _Kim Nayoung_ —are involved in some kinda scandalous lesbian relationship. Blink if that’s how it goes.”

Sejeong blinked. Out of _confusion_. “What—“

“Oh my god,”

“No!” She raised her voice, patience low on fuel. “God, what the _hell_?”

“It’s spreading like wildfire,” Eunwoo continued, a little more hushed, “you might not want the teachers to catch even a whiff of this…”

It was middle school, and while the prospect of getting called into the counseling room with Nayoung over some untrue lesbian rumor gave her goosebumps all over, it was the idea of her schoolmates tagging her as the lesbian of the year that drained the color from her. It was middle school; the spectrum of sexuality was a concept too foreign and anything out of the norm was a human too alien. To fit in was the goal of many, to rank in the hierarchy was the noble goal of a few.

Sejeong stood a secret guard to her own identity, which she would later question for years. She couldn’t afford being a dime in a dozen, too much things at stake, and Sejeong was born a calculating person because she knew with all her conditional limitations, there were so few choices to make and take.

“It’s Seungah,” Sejeong seethed, eyes on the dessert she ordered for the sake of ordering, “it can’t be anyone else. She’s crazy enough for this. She’s crazy enough for a daylight axe murder.”

Chaekyung piped in, eyebrows furrowed. “She’s been trying to get into Rowoon’s heart—or pants—so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s pulling a green-eyed not-girlfriend kinda stunt on you.”

Sejeong burrowed her face into a sweaty palm. “This _sucks_ …”

Eunwoo made a joke (Sejeong laughed a little at _skank-ah_ ), Chaekyung fueled her rage with Nasty Seungah Rumors, and Sejeong occasionally took bites from the chocolate dessert, yet it melted all too quickly into something too stale. Her tongue tasted like fear. It went unfinished.

Later that night, she couldn’t focus on anything else but her phone, trying to get to Nayoung’s side, and Nayoung picked it up after three missed calls. “ _I’m really sorry, I left my phone in the living room. I didn’t notice… um, what’s up?”_

She must have known something was up. The three missed calls read like an urgency.

And Sejeong transformed into a woeful story teller that spun the rumors into a story, Seungah into a child-eating demon, sentence breaks into frustrated curses, and Nayoung into overly quiet. Her harbored hate on display and her furious sobs on clearance sale, Nayoung then spoke up with a voice too calm.

“ _Sejeong?”_

“Yes…?”

“ _It’s gonna be okay.”_

“God, no, it’s easy for you to say that ‘cause they have _always_ seen you as the weird one. Things can’t be looking more sinister for me.”

“ _Exactly_. _But okay, if you ask me, this is kinda hilarious.”_

Nayoung lost her at ‘hilarious’. “That asks for elaboration.”

“ _Like—I mean, the idea of two girls dating. Is it that repulsive?”_

“It’s… not that acceptable here.”

“ _Do you find it repulsive?”_

“I don’t know,”

“ _Would you date me?”_

The question slaughtered Sejeong’s mood even further. Confusion fragmented her conscience apart. She wished she could just straddle death. “God, I don’t know,”

“ _Would you date me if I’m actually attractive?”_

“I’m gonna hang up.”

A chuckled transferred over the line. “ _Jokes. But point is, it’s gonna be okay.”_

“Optimism, that’s rich.”

An elongated silence. Then, “ _I’ll look after you. I already told you that… remember?”_

 

* * *

 

The peak was the girls’ locker room confrontation after P.E. Messy Seungah went head to head against her own messy self, and it turned the humid changing room reeking of body odor into a boxing ring that smelled like blood-thirst.

It all started like this.

“Hey,” Seungah attracted others’ attention like a honeycomb, and it subdued the others’ buzzes into a quiet, “us girls can’t really change when we have _predators_ in here.”

Seungah said all this while also going through her own locker without pointing an accusing finger at anyone in particular, but Sejeong knew the plural predator she tried to bait.

Seungah spoke up again too soon. “Doesn’t matter if you’re particularly attractive or not, these predators prey on anyone wearing skirts, so…”

“What’s your problem?” Sejeong was at her wit’s end. She approached Seungah in larger steps. “What’s your problem with _me_?”

Seungah was all ice even though she was the MVP of today’s volleyball bout. “You _are_ the problem, Sejeong. We can’t change with you and your girlie around. Busy her mouth outside.”

That one popped a vein. “Your mouth is the one in desperate need of a job. Gossiping someone up into a lesbian is _so_ low.”

“It’s not a make-believe and it’s already made clear.”

“What’s your damage?”

“I felt the need to expose you to people – of how you actually are. There’s a serpent beneath the girl next door persona you charm boys with.” Seungah bared fangs, after a decade of their sleep. “It’s a school, not a pet zoo, Sejeongie. We’re taking the snakes out.”

Sejeong balled her fists harder, she felt the skin stretching atop jutting knuckles. “It’s Rowoon, isn’t it?”

“We don’t talk about your 108th victim.”

“You’re so _fucking_ disgusting, Seungah. All this just because of a _boy_.”

“Look, maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s just, well, _you_.”

“You like him. Who likes me. You _want_ him, who wants me. The whole thing is such a low jab, but if anyone’s here going all time low, it’s _you_ ,” and Sejeong seethed, “you _cheap slut_.”

It triggered Seungah into throwing a claw into Sejeong’s shoulder, who then wriggled free and paid Seungah back with a shove, and it escalated into a fight then turned into a five-way battle royale fast as the other girls jumped in to wrench her and Seungah away from each other. When Seungah’s stray palm landed a clean hit in the side of her face among the confusion and the mess of limbs, Sejeong was about strike back until she saw a blur of someone charging straight into Seungah.

Nayoung shoved Seungah hard onto the locker next to her, and the noises died down for some time. Disbelief washed them all over.

Seungah was the one taken aback the most.

But it took her too quickly to launch back her feet and took a fistful of Nayoung’s hair and gave it a harsh tug from the front. Her voice was almost a reminiscence of some Goethe demon, “Glad the other _dyke_ finally outed herself.”

“We aren’t a thing and you need to leave Sejeong be!” Nayoung shouted in a strain.

“If you aren’t a thing then _what_? You’re saying it’s a dramatic one-sided lesbian soap opera all along?”

Nayoung was quiet.

Seungah took the cue to make her hair her own leash and pulled it harshly, the ugly _clang_ and _thud_ resounded the moment Nayoung’s back made contact with the locker. To make things worse, her cronies began to fill the gaps, almost circling, but still open for an audience comprised of the classmates and a confused Sejeong.

“You see, I’ve always known you have it in you to be a gross pervert in the closet. You’re too quiet to function in class.” Seungah started, the calm creeping back into her voice. “It’s always the quiet ones. You masturbate to the photos we uploaded on our SNS, huh?”

“No— _ack!_ ” Nayoung winced hard at another pull.

Sejeong lunged forward, but two girls stopped her dead in her track. She couldn’t reach the captive Nayoung.

One of the girls gently pulled Nayoung’s glasses off her bewildered face and placed it on the bench, folded and safe. Sejeong knew that marked the start of something bigger.

“So, say, Nayoung,” Seungah peered closer into Nayoung’s reddened eyes, “between you and Sejeong, who’s the lesbian?”

“ _None_ of us, you bitch— _OW!”_

It was beyond horrifying. Bullying stories were something passed from a generation onto another. Jaehwan faced some for acting ‘sissy’. Chaekyung told a story of how a kid in her elementary school got bullied for looking unconventionally ugly. Sejeong had heard herself a plenty, but never an active participant.

This was the first time in her life where she was actively roped into one – attractive, popular swans in a semi-circle around the class’ ugly duckling. It didn’t surprise many.

It didn’t resonate with many, either, because it was middle school, and everybody wanted to fit in.

And she wasn’t any different. She wanted to fit in.

And when her eyes finally met Nayoung’s murky, tear-ridden ones, it was her point of no return.

“…it was me,” Nayoung choked on her own sob, “crap, it was _me_ ,”

“It was you _what_?” Seungah threw the bait.

“It was _me_! I’m the effin’ lez!” Nayoung broke into a derisive laugh. “I like her, ugh, satisfied?”

The rest was an anthology of things Sejeong would wish she could forget forever, but no matter how many times she tried to tear the pages, to rip all the parts where Nayoung would look at her as they slammed her against the locker, to burn the part where jumped for a save when it was all too late, they stayed there. Documented in high definition to haunt her for years to come.

It was Nayoung’s fucked up smile that stayed with her the longest, the one she procured after she called Seungah something so thoroughly insulting, she got a hard slap that sent her to the floor.

 

* * *

 

“Got into a fist fight, Yakuza?”

She walked past Hakyeon, zipped into her room before her mother could catch her looking like she just came back from a one-fourth physical three-fourth emotional warfare.

She washed up, chose a cold shower over a warm one, and made it all quick, breaking records of time spent from all the instances of her avoiding the mirror just so she wouldn’t have to see the coward staring back at her.

The hardest part was when her pride conceded and she dialed Nayoung’s number, and Nayoung picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” Her voice came out too unsure than intended.

“ _Sejeong,_ ”

“I’m sorry.”

“ _It’s okay,”_

“There’s nothing okay about this—Nayoung, I,”

“ _When tomorrow comes, please don’t talk to me anymore._ ”

“No, no,”

“ _No, I mean, Sejeong. I went extra miles to get you out of this. Don’t undo all the beating I got for you, please…”_

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go at all,”

“ _I know—please don’t cry—middle school’s gonna be over soon enough._ ”

The rest of the call was mostly nondescript silence, Nayoung’s faint sobbing, and Nayoung’s whispered _I like you, Sejeong, I like you a lot_.

 

* * *

 

 

Nayoung didn’t attend the graduation ceremony, but she had been skipping school except for the important test days. Nobody batted an eye. To everybody else, it was a good riddance, even. One less creeper to be worried about.

(Hakyeon stayed with her throughout that night and she never knew she needed a company until she broke down against his back.)

Nayoung locked herself in the house every time Sejeong forced a visit. Knocks went unanswered. Messages went on read.

Nayoung moved out of the town but she only realized it a week later. None of her neighbors knew where the family departed to.

Seungah got into a private all-girls, hearsay said that she assumed her throne as immediate as her first day there. Rowoon stayed on the status quo and he lied to her that he had moved on. Sejeong lied to him that she believed him.

It was an end of an era. Sejeong survived it, but not without bearing scars.

 


End file.
